starman0337
recently joined
Reged: 12/17/08
Posts: 1
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I am a Single custodial parent of a 12 year old Son, I have had custody for 4 years now. His Mother lives nearby for the past year as before she lived 5 states away. I have given him extensive liberties, he has always been mindful, respectful, helpful, and lately he has many missed assignments, will not clean his room, and waits until the very last moment to crawl out of bed in the morning and then has to rush to School. He has no friends that he hangs around after School, as he comes directly home, where my girlfriend makes sure he eats, and begins his homework, until I get home from work a couple of hours later, so I know it is not a Drug issue. I am completely at wits end, or am I just experiencing the "Terrible Teens"?
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ILMimi
addict
Reged: 01/03/08
Posts: 502
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He could be suffering from depression. You may want to get him evaluated by a psychiatrist.
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Annie7676
old hand
Reged: 06/05/05
Posts: 862
Loc: NY
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How are his grades? Is he a good student, does he have any outside interests? the other poster is right it might be depression but could be anything or nothing...
if it is not attributed to depression or anything except starting to break away then guess some behaviour modification may be a suggestion...video games? cell phone? if he has those and is missing school assignments then they could be curtailed..
as far as the room goes well...i know it bothers many a parent but a parent once put a different slant on it...her teenager did very well in school, held a job, took advanced classes, was in sports and was in high honors...her room was an absolute mess...the mother chalked it up to that maybe the room was the only place where she did not have control it a space where she could relax as all the other facets of her teenagers life were fine...it made sense to me so I let the room thing go...of course within reason...
if his grades are failing and he is withdrawing then counseling may be in order....good luck
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StupidWomen
enthusiast
Reged: 09/21/07
Posts: 201
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Yes, you are experiencing the terrible teens.
We all live through it, but never now how. 
--------------------
Stupid Women should be gagged!
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rootofallevil
journeyman
Reged: 09/04/08
Posts: 68
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Yes I believe it is terrible teens. We went through similar with my oldest stepson. He is 14 now and although he is now into questioning authority more and assuming he can just take whatever liberty he pleases, we went through exactly what you are dealing with now.
You mention that you give him alot of liberties. Well, whether depressed or just the terrible teens, some of those liberties need to go away if he is not doing his homework, not getting up in the morning, etc. By all means ask if there is any reason behind what is going on, but make it known that it is not acceptable and there are INSTANT consequences...not this b.s. of when he fails he'll learn a lesson....duh these are still kids and that attitude simply sets them up to fail, doesn't help them learn what they could or SHOULD be doing differently in order not to fail. He misses an assignment, he looses an hour on the computer or he looses his cell phone. He wakes up late for school he goes to bed an hour earlier. And so on.
As for friends, my stepson also had a VERY hard time in this department. Talk to him about it...with my stepson, he had more liberties with video and computer games then his classmates and his world consisted only of those items, so it wasn't that classmates didn't like him, they just had nothing in common with him. This required stepping in on my part and my husband's part. Being on the outside lookingin, I noticed about him being on different social levels than classmates and we talked about that often. He was BORED by his classmates because they didn't even know alot of the games he played. It took awhile for him to understand that they were bored by him for the same reasons. Husband had to make the effort to take him to school events even though we are about 30 miles/45 minutes away from their home town. But keeping up on things going on at school AND making ourselves available to get him to those events made a huge difference. Suddenly video games became less important...he found out he liked other things and his true friend base grew.
It carried over to events in our town too. He now has a nice group of friends from school in his mom's town and from here. He has his school friends down often and sometimes both groups do things together.
It will come...
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Yes_Dad
Carpal \'Tunnel
Reged: 08/23/08
Posts: 7406
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Quote:
I am a Single custodial parent of a 12 year old Son, I have had custody for 4 years now. His Mother lives nearby for the past year as before she lived 5 states away. I have given him extensive liberties, he has always been mindful, respectful, helpful, and lately he has many missed assignments, will not clean his room, and waits until the very last moment to crawl out of bed in the morning and then has to rush to School. He has no friends that he hangs around after School, as he comes directly home, where my girlfriend makes sure he eats, and begins his homework, until I get home from work a couple of hours later, so I know it is not a Drug issue. I am completely at wits end, or am I just experiencing the "Terrible Teens"?
To answer your question. Yes
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GreatMomma
member
Reged: 06/17/05
Posts: 134
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Sounds like a typical teen. As long as he's doing his homework, polite, not getting into trouble, ignore the room. Shut the door. That's what I do.
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